African National Congress national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota this week talked and acted tough in Khutsong township, where no ANC electoral activity has taken place because of a planned election boycott by residents.
In a climate of anger, fear and intimidation, Lekota threatened to crack down on elements in the township who were disrupting free electoral activity.
In the same week, about 2 000 women marched in protest against Khutsong’s incorporation into the North West, while an ANC councillor candidate withdrew from the list in response to intolerable pressure. Wearing ”Khutsong 100% Gauteng” T-shirts, the women carried placards warning ”Lekota jy vat ‘n kans [Lekota you’re taking a chance]”.
ANC candidate Petrus Juba Tlhobela told the Mail & Guardian that he had resigned from the list after friends and family persuaded him that the heat he was experiencing was not worth a council position.
Tlhobela was number seven on the ANC’s Merafong proportional list. As with other councillors, he had been urged to resign in solidarity with most of the community who are boycotting the elections.
”I took this decision after my doctor booked me off from work due to stress,” he said.
A week ago, an ANC councillor, Oupa Ramokgwatedi, was arrested for shooting a resident after ANC members were pelted with stones when they tried to hold a meeting.He is currently facing an attempted murder charge.
Ramokgwatedi is one of 14 councillors who fled the township in December after their homes were torched. They are staying in a Carletonville mine compound and cannot campaign in the township despite the fact that some of them are listed as ward candidates.
No party political posters are visible, as they were torn down as soon as they were put up. Schools and churches, which serve as voting stations, have received letters warning them not to open on election day as the drive for a successful election boycott intensifies.
Merafong Council estimates that R20-million of damage has been caused through the burning of municipal offices, libraries, houses and councillors’ properties.
At a mass rally last week, residents vowed they would never allow the ANC to campaign in the area. Members of the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) said there would be no schooling this year if they received any documentation carrying the North West education department’s letterhead.
An anonymous pamphlet was recently distributed in the township accusing the South African Communist Party, which at one stage spearheaded the protest campaign, of being criminals and opportunists and of being led by tsotsis (gangsters).
The pamphlet accused the local SACP leaders of being apartheid-era policemen, womanisers, warlords and foreigners in the township. ”Are these true leaders? Say no to the SACP of violence and initimidation!” it demands.
This is despite the fact that the local SACP appeared to backtrack on the campaign after its national leadership announced the party would back the ANC in the elections. Community resistance is now led by the Anti-North West Committee.
The fraught climate prompted the ANC to deploy its top leadership, including Lekota, North West Premier Edna Molewa and several provincial ministers, to the area. Lekota spent most of this week trying to open the township to electioneering and meeting important stakeholders such as churches and business.
ANC MP Khotso Khumalo, who has also been deployed in the area, said the ANC had drafted a programme for normalisation. ”We want the situation to calm down so that free campaigning can start, we can eliminate no-go areas and eventually ensure an ANC victory in all wards.
”We want to be able to speak authoritatively so that people will vote on March 1,” Khumalo said.
The ANC is planning sectoral meetings, culminating in a mass rally in the township.
Oupa Diale, a veteran member of the ANC, who supports the protest action, said: ”If the leadership had come here and addressed residents when the incorporation decision was taken, the ANC would not be the target of the community’s anger.”
Initially, the local SACP leadership was planning to put up candidates against the ANC, but the party’s national leadership issued a strong statement saying the party had adopted a resolution at its last congress to support the ANC in the local government elections.
Local leaders told the M&G that the ANC had put pressure on them to help them calm the upsurge, but they had refused.
